A PASSION PLAY

Excellent!! Possibly overshadowed by Brick, this album is almost on par with it, and definitely better than all releases other than Thick as a Brick. I wish they would have kept with the single song "concept" album feel, they do it like no other band.

Same lineup as the last, the story goes, they were recording and writing an album in France, only for the tapes to become unusable, to which Anderson handled superbly by some how coming up with this epic album in such a short time for release. The story is of course, about a man who parishes, goes through the cycle of Heaven and Hell, not liking either and ultimately being reborn. The lyrics are pretty vague and metaphoric, the writing is superb.

The atmosphere of this one is darker than the comedic feel that Thick as a Brick so often exhibited, John Evans delving deeper into the worlds of keyboards and moog synthesizer. Barre is featured less prominently, but you can always here him playing along in the backround. Anderson adds more wind instruments, the soprano and sopranino sax. His acoustic guitar is shown to be very effective, Ian is really underrated as a picker. The themes in A Passion Play are excellent, perhaps a little weaker than Brick, but great regardless. I prefer side two, and "The Story of the Hare" is a playful bridging of the sides. It DOES get old, however.

In my opinion underrated, maybe some of the negative reviews have been biased by the interpretation of the album by critics so long ago, which was unjust to say the least. I can full heartedly reccomend this album if you enjoyed Thick as a Brick. A certain masterpeice.